YDS-2016-Spring-04
March 27, 2016 • 1 min
The Paleo diet is very popular these days. The Red Lady of El Mirón cave in northern Spain also ate the Paleo diet almost 19,000 years ago. But it was not a trend for her. A close look at the Red Lady's teeth shows that the meat of the hoofed animals, such as red deer and mountain goat, made up about 80 percent of her diet. Fish seems to have made up most of the rest of her diet. If that sounds a little dull, fear not. Meticulous dental analysis reveals she also ate some starchy plant material, most likely to have been seeds, plus mushrooms, although probably in small amounts. Whether mushrooms were eaten for nutrition or for some other purpose is unknown. Could the diet revealed by this unique fossil from northern Spain make you live a longer, healthier life? Although the surviving bones of the Red Lady suggest she was healthy, her age at death was between 35 and 40. That may have counted as middle-aged for people who lived in Paleolithic times. Perhaps you had better stick to a balanced diet with five portions of fruit and vegetables a day.